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For installing stuff, unless you install from sources, which anymore seems just archaic, you'll probably notice that a lot of software package makers leave out .tgz for Slackware stuff, so you'll probably want to look at linuxpackages so you'll at least have a shot at finding newer stuff and more than what came on the CDs / DVD.

Also remember that a couple packages are there that don't show up for the installer because they are in /testing or something else that doesn't show up in the install.

One of the first ting you can do that is actually really easy to set up and do, is setting up an FTP server.

I use Slackware on my FTP server. I just set it up so that it doesn't do anonymous log ins and instead, you log into it with a username and password, so I can upload back ups of every machine here to one place, and from there, I can burn them to CD, and put them on my USB HD and ZIP disks. It has two HDs in it, the first one being where the /swap and / partition are, and the other bigger HD I made one big partition named /storage so I could use it for whatever. It's usable by anyone with a log in name.

I generally use VSFTP as it's easy and fast to set up and use. I also use PureFTP sometimes too. I think if you're new to this it might be a good idea since you'll have a place to store back ups of stuff.

It had over 200 days of uptime before I had to unplug it and move it while the floors were being done, which sucked because I had to have everything shut down.

I think lackware comes with VSFTP on the installer. Just do this to check:

cd /etc

vim vsftpd.conf

The thing has good comments for a configuration file. I didn't bother reading the man page, I just opened it up and read it to see what each option did, and once I had that done, and set it to allow local users to log in and have write access, I saved and quit that and then as root did this:

vsftpd &

Hit Enter and it's running. You can then log in and upload stuff or download stuff from your home directory. It's pretty easy to do. I also have SSH enabled too.

It's one idea anyway. We have a lot of machines here, and using a bunch of CDs to copy MP3s and movies and software isn't viable. So downloading it over my network at a MUCH higher speed, is.

And if you comment out and un-comment the right stuff, you don't have to worry much because the only people who can log in are whatever usernames you've set up.

Very cool, thanks for the idea. I've got a FreeNAS box I back up important stuff too, but I'd like to be able to do full system backups when I have enough storage available.

Actually, I'm considering trying to set it up as an ssh server so I can tunnel through it to use my home internet when I'm away. The idea being I can be in a hotel and send ssh encrypted traffic through their open wireless back home and back again. I've been testing this using freesshd on a Windows machine and checked my traffic using Wireshark, but I'd like to see if I can do the same thing through this Slackware box. How feasible does this sound? I don't know how to do it yet, but want to learn.
KP

Last edited by KPryor; January 19th, 2009 at 05:31 PM.
Reason: Added a bit

SSH is already on there. When you install and get to the end of it, it asks which servers you'd like on by default, if you selected SSH it's already done. If not, you can just enable it and log in like that. You'll have to put the machine in your DMZ, or directly connect it to the net so you can get to it from somewhere else, which means you'll want to be sure all patches are installed first, but other than that it's pretty easy.